Monday, July 2, 2018

Century Old Grocery Store Just Surpassed Whole Foods For Vegetarian Fare

A regional grocery chain named Vons has beat out Whole Foods as the grocery chain topped the list of stores where vegetarians and customers seeking meat alternatives shop. More surprising, Vons is a 115 year old grocery chain that has a kind of cult following in southern California and Nevada.

So what do we make of this and what does it mean for Whole Foods and other large health food store chains like Trader Joe’s who also lost out to Vons?

In all honesty, it doesn’t mean much. Vons has a chain of stores in the locations where Whole Foods is known to have most of its vegetarian customers – Southern California – so it’s no surprise that a regional chain that keeps the prices a little lower and already has a massive following in the same area would absorb many of those customers, raising the percentage rate of overall customers for their own stores.

It does, however, show that vegetarianism and at least the addition of meat free items to meals is going mainstream and, once previously the domain of health food and specialty stores, mainstream chains and corporate America are both being forced to get in on the act and eagerly awaiting the next gravy train.

Lastly, it shows that companies like Whole Foods (though not so much Trader Joe’s) are actually moving further and further away from their base.

Whole Foods, often known as “Whole Paycheck” is well understood to be prohibitively overpriced with many of its products not even being as “whole” or as “healthy” as it claims.

A year after Whole Foods was acquired by Internet retail giant Amazon, the food company announced that it is backing off its commitment to ensuring that food suppliers inform the consumer and the store itself if their food products contain GMOs.

There is some confusion about the decision by Whole Foods to walk back on its commitment but one thing is for sure – it is walking back.

In an email sent by Whole Foods President and Chief Operations Officer A.C. Gallo announced that the company is pausing its GMO Food labeling requirements.

The requirements, which were scheduled to take effect on September 1, would have required that suppliers disclose on their packaging whether or not their products contained genetically modified ingredients.

The requirements, which were announced five years ago, were three months away from being implemented.

Unfortunately, Whole Foods has pulled up the stake on their promise.

It remains to be seen how much the corporation will be hurt by this move since a sizeable portion of their customer base is opposed to consuming GMOs. But some are now wondering whether or not its constant placating of the GMO industry and the overpriced goods are not finally coming home to roost.

Hopefully, Whole Foods will see the error of its ways and learn from its mistakes. After all, the more vegetarian options and healthy foods available, the better for us all.

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